Perverted? It's true, but it's true. Alessandro Amamba is more famous for his collaboration with Nicole Kidman, but in 1996's debut "Death Paper", the Spanish director has already shown a certain The skill, at least dared to tease and analyze the audience's psychology boldly in the first work, first gained a firm foothold in connotation, and it is no wonder that this film included seven from the script to the actors in the Goya Award selection that year. This award is nothing short of a stunning appearance for a new director.
In comparison, the first two-thirds of the film are more exciting. As soon as the chapter begins, Amamba tries a little bit with a subway accident on the rails, approaching the scene of the accident step by step through the heroine Angela's subjective vision and the evacuation broadcast in the subway, but Angela is about to see a tragic scene. He was suddenly pulled back to the crowd by a staff member. Although there was no bloody component, the audience still experienced a small heartbeat, which shows how good the director is at creating an atmosphere of fear. Such little tricks Amamba is very handy, and after that, he uses one after another in the audio-visual design of the unique bridges to continuously stack suspense and horror.
For example, when Angela got the violent video tape and wanted to watch it but didn't dare to watch it, she first turned the TV screen to the darkest to listen to the sound, and then recorded the audio on the tape and played a woman's shrill screams on the Walkman. Yelling, whetted the audience's appetite to find out the truth about the videotape; another example is Angela and Chema who were cut off from the power supply in the secret passage of the library, and the two could only rely on a box of matches to obtain light, as the secret passage deepened And the reduction of matches, the fear of falling into darkness and being attacked at any time also infected the audience from the characters. Of course, the appeal of the first half is also due to the fact that the plot twists and turns between several suspects, including Chema, Professor Castro, Bosque, and even Bosque's girlfriend Yolanda, who are in Ankh. The unknown and guesswork will always be the most gripping elements of a horror thriller, within the limits of Ra's suspicions.
However, "Death Paper" is only the first project of Amamba's fledgling after all, and its flaws are gradually exposed in the last third of the film. In order to create a dramatic effect, the director has set up reversals in several places, but they all seem rather sloppy and deliberate, which makes the story unclear. What's more prominent is that compared to the tense and interesting beginning, the end of the film is too hasty, especially the climax (Angela and Bosque's battle of wits and bravery) falls into stereotypes and lacks points of interest, which is really a pity.
"Anticlimactic" may be a more appropriate evaluation of this film, but if the plot is not satisfactory, we can find that Amamba's theme is still meaningful. Angela and Bosque represent two types of models. The former is the epitome of the public, who is both fearful and curious about terror and violence, while the latter is a metaphor for the person who makes the violence and even directly represents the violence itself. Bosque is handsome and charming. Like terror and violence, it is a combination of danger and temptation. Angela resisted it hard, but at the same time could not hold back, so that he fell into Bosque blindly and foolishly. This kind of situation is almost a true portrayal of the public's inability to resist terror or violence in various media. Amamba also used Professor Castro's mouth to explain the root cause of the proliferation of violence in film and television - if you want to shoot, you can shoot what the audience wants to see. The implication is that the root of this cancer not only comes from the media people with bad intentions, but also exists in our own hearts at the same time.
The film ends in a hospital with patients in every room staring intently at the news on the TV about the violent videotape case, while Angela and Chema walk into the elevator and leave the hospital. Although they lost the slightest interest in violent videos after experiencing this thrilling incident, they were powerless to most of the "sick people" (sick people) around them. Perhaps violence has been doomed to accompany the entire process of human civilization since the beginning of chaos.
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